BtVS: Will It Be Enough?
by Leni
Summary: After a long time Buffy comes back. B/A
1. Will it be Enough?

  
Will It Be Enough?  
  
by Leni  
  
DISCLAIMER: Angel is in L.A dealing with the bad guys. Buffy is in Sunnydale buried and mourned for. They aren't together. They don't have smoochies. They are SO not mine.   
DISTRIBUTION: E-mail me. I'll say yes.   
AN: I tried to write a sequel for 'Afterlife'. I ended up with this. I don't know how... blame the dark coffee. Anyway, I like this little story though it's a little strange, especially the first part; then it gets better, I promise. Enjoy it.   
AN2: I need a beta-reader. Urgently. Are you one? Do you know one? Please e-mail me.   
SUMMARY: Many centuries in the future two lovers are finally reunited. But will it be enough? B/A issues.   
FEEDBACK: *Very* appreciated. So be nice and tell me what you think.   
  
  
  
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------  
  
I don't remember how I appeared here. I was discussing the same as always... Well, maybe 'discussing' wasn't it. Pleading, begging, threatening and blackmailing would be more exact. But anyways, suddenly a bright ray of light appeared from nowhere and ZOOM here I was.   
  
First I didn't recognize the place. I mean, it's been a LOT of time since the last time I was here. And then I realized: Wherever I was it was the place where I should be. I don't care why they finally agreed with this. Now I only know I have to find him. Only him.   
  
I have been walking for hours, maybe even days. I've let my instincts led me, I've followed the little voice which always told me where he is. I'm hearing it for the first time since I was 18 and stupid. I'm hearing it with all my might.   
  
But I still can't find him.   
  
Where are you, love?   
  
There was a time where I could find him in the most secret place of the world, where I knew his feelings as if they were my own. Then I shut down those feelings...and I still dreamt of him even when I swore I had forgotten his face. Our connection broke and I let it do so. Now I want it to awake anew. I'm letting it guide me and I know it is leading me towards him. But why is it taking so long?   
  
Right. Left. Right. Left. I know that this path leads only to him. Every option I take will only lead to him again. It has always been that way. My entire life is a circle where he begins and ends it. He just didn't know it. The path I'm taking now should go to him too... but it's so long, when will I finally reach you?   
  
I'm tired. Hour upon hour of unstoppable walking has finally taken its toll on me. I sit on a bench of this strange park. The green leaves are bright in the light of the new day. The flowers rejoice under the loving sun. They are lucky for they have everything they need right here. I must go find the one who would help me stay alive.   
  
Where are you, love?   
  
I know I must go on. I must find him. He is somewhere in this strange world and I can't stop until he is with me again. But   
  
I am so tired. Just let me rest for a minute or two... I close my eyes and let my mind wander for a while.   
  
I am dreaming now, I know it. I'm dreaming that we are together and that we are happy. We are sitting contentedly against a tree and his arms are tight around me. We are happy. He is telling me that he loves me and that he will never leave me again. I smile. This is heaven. It isn't real and it isn't enough. But it is still nice to hear him say-.   
  
"Are you ok, miss?"   
  
Huh? I must be dreaming again because I could swear that I heard his voice and I know it's impossible. I open my eyes slowly. There's someone above me eyeing me with curiosity and I know who he is and I know that I am still dreaming because I should be the one finding him and not the other way around.   
  
"Miss?"   
  
Brown eyes, dark hair, mild soothing voice. It's him. The same strong features I've longed to see for so much time. The cheek which I let myself trace slowly now. Soft, pale skin. The lips I want to touch with my own. Just a kiss and all this loneliness will go away.   
  
I've missed you.   
  
At last I found you, love.   
  
"What are you doing, miss?"   
  
Or maybe not.   
  
You retire my hands from your face. Don't you know that they are begging for another touch? You look at me with those brown soft eyes. They are wondering. They want answers. They look at me searchingly and found none. Don't you know that there is no answer? Don't you know that I can't give you one? But your eyes still hold questions and the harsh truth comes down onto me.   
  
YOU   
  
DON'T   
  
KNOW  
  
"Don't you know me?" I ask in a whisper praying that your response will be the one I want. It isn't. I can feel the question lurking in your eyes. You are watching my eyes, my lips, the little nose you liked to kiss and you still don't know who I am. Where does that leave me?   
  
"I'm sorry, miss. I think you have confused me for another."   
  
"No." There won't be confusion anymore. It's been enough. How could I ever confuse you? You were always in my mind; you were the only one who could make laugh, who could make me cry... you just don't remember it. The Powers That Be warned me that this would happen. I just didn't believe them. I believed in you. Guess I was wrong. "Don't you know me?" I repeat. Please remember me.   
  
"I have never seen you before, miss"   
  
Never? You have seen me at my weakest; you have seen me at my strongest. You have loved me, you have hated me and you have ignored me. You really don't remember anything? Don't you remember the kisses under the moonlight? The words of love and hate... the smiles, the tears? Don't you remember *us*? Your eyes tell me you don't. They never lied before and they won't do it now. I just wish...   
  
Do you even remember yourself? I would gladly tell you, dear. You are the one who swore to give me eternal love. How long does 'eternal' mean for you, love? Not even one millennium has passed and you have already forgotten me. Should I be mad?   
  
"You promised. You promised and you forgot. I hate you" No, I don't. I always wanted to, though. Damn heart of mine, always loving you without caring for its own health...   
  
"Are you feeling well, miss?"   
  
No I'm not. I came back for you and you don't even remember. I managed to convince them to bring me back and you won't take me in your arms. I've been missing you for the last six centuries and you don't even know who I am. And you ask if I feel well?   
  
I'm sorry. Maybe my reaction should have been better. It's not for nothing that they warned me. I just didn't want to believe. They told me oblivion was part of your reward. No more guilt over past faults. You wouldn't remember your own sins. Was I a sin, too? Is it the reason you've forgotten me? "No... I- I don't think so."   
  
"Where do you live, miss? Maybe I should accompany you home."   
  
"Yeah, maybe but-" But I don't know where to go. You are the one supposed to tell me what to do, you always did. I'm counting on you to do this one more time... even if just for old time's sake... "But..." But I never knew where to go except to your arms. What should I do when you won't crush me in them? What should I do here with -without- you? "I'm lost."   
  
"Don't you know where to go, miss?"   
  
"No." I never knew anything except to be with you. And now I only know you. Literally. Bad thing you don't remember me.   
  
"What are you doing here alone, then? This is not a good neighborhood for a helpless young girl."   
  
Always the gentleman. I should be pleased. I am not. Are you always this charming with strangers? Or just with blonde green-eyed ones? There was a time where you wouldn't speak to anyone you hadn't met, but then there was a time where I was the center of your existence, too. Those times are buried in the past now. I'm sorry. "It's ok. Don't worry."   
  
"It's not ok, miss. You shouldn't be here alone."   
  
No, I never should have come here. I never should have disturbed my own rest. But I wanted to; I needed to. Just to see you once again, just to feel your lips against mine. I decided to come back. Please don't make me regret my decision.   
  
"What are you doing here, anyway?"   
  
Looking for you. Waiting for you. Dreaming with you. And now that you are here I only want to stay with you. Would you let me even if you don't remember? "I need..." I need you to know who I am. I need you to share the memories of a time long gone. I need you to welcome me in your arms with a long sweet kiss and never let go. I need you to tell me this is only a bad joke. "I don't know."   
  
It is not a joke, is it? It is reality. But I don't have to love it, do I?   
  
"Come with me, miss."   
  
Always the gentleman. Save the damsel in distress. Save her from yourself. I hated you then. But you are still a gentleman and I guess everybody loves you now. I should be happy for you. I'm not. I'm jealous. I want you for myself. So sue me.   
  
Silence.  
  
"Come with me, miss, I assure you I'm harmless."   
  
"Maybe." But not for my heart, never for my heart.   
  
"Don't you trust me?"   
  
Forever, that's the whole point. A dream. A beach. A day so bright as the one today. Harsh words and tender kisses. Will you go away again?   
  
"I just want to help you, miss."   
  
And look where it got us to... You always wanted to help me. Help. Help. Your personal mantra. Your reason of being. The center of your universe. It always was more important than me. Your own Calling. Help. You helped them. You helped us. You helped me. You just wouldn't help yourself. Has that already changed, love? "Ok."   
  
"I promise I won't do you any harm, miss"   
  
Just as you promised to love me forever? Please tell me you'll keep your word on this one.   
  
"Where do you want to go, miss?"   
  
"Wherever you want." The words are out before I even think of them. But it is true. It's the only answer I can ever give you. Guide me. Let me follow your steps. Lead me through the bright light as you once led me through the consuming darkness. Just don't ever let me go. Loneliness is the scariest thing. I know it now. Please don't leave me alone again.   
  
"Let me think of a good place..."   
  
You look at me again. Your eyes are so different... where once was love and sadness now there only is faith and warm and... questions. Your brown eyes held questions in them. Will you be brave enough to ask them? I would answer you. I would need to because you don't know the answers anymore. You don't remember. You don't love me. You don't miss me. I've missed you. Does that count for something?   
  
"Miss? I'm sorry. I... I don't know where to go"   
  
Just as indecisive as always, I see. May I give you a little push?   
  
"I trust you."   
  
Trust. Five letters. One word. Once it was the base of our love, of our doubts, of our fears. Now it is only a little word. How could things change so much?   
  
You smile. You have already decided.   
  
"I just know of the best place... yeah, it'll do perfectly." Pause. Those brown eyes are meeting mine again. "Take my hand, miss."   
  
I do. Your hand is warm. I take it and then it is you and me strolling down the park hand-in-hand under the bright sun. I never thought something so different could be so right. This is like a dream. But then you don't remember that this is different and this is a nightmare all over again. Remember, please; don't leave me alone with these memories.   
  
"Are you ok, miss?"   
  
I snap. "Don't call me 'miss', I'm tired of it. My name is Buffy. Buffy Summers."   
  
You weren't waiting that reaction, were you? You let out a gasp. A real one. And that reminds me that I'm breathing the same air as you. Literally. It's nice.   
  
"I'm sorry, mi-Buffy"   
  
You voice catches a bit when saying it. It gives my name the same accent it gave it six centuries ago. Maybe... maybe your voice is remembering even if you are not. Maybe someday... "Don't worry. It's no problem. I just don't like formalities much."   
  
Little smile.   
  
There's a little cloud coming out of your lips. You are breathing. You are alive and I'm alive too. You are here and I'm here too. We could be finally happy. Fate is smiling at us. But maybe that's not enough.   
  
"Would you like to go come with me for a coffee, Buffy?"   
  
Or maybe it is.   
  
"Of course."   
  
Smiles.   
  
"By the way, my name is Angel."   
  
  
The End  



	2. Loving For the First Time - or maybe Sin...

  
  
  
TITLE: Loving Again - Or Maybe For The First Time? (Sequel to 'Will It Be Enough?')  
AUTHOR: Leni  
DISCLAIMER: Well, Angel is finally human and Buffy is with him... Do you think Joss would have done it?  
  
TIMELINE: Months after 'Will It Be Enough?'  
SYNOPSIS: Angel is thinking about his life. Fluff, fluff and FLUFF!!  
  
DEDICATION: To Ali, who requested this sequel and who is helping me with my pet-project, aren't you, Ali? :o)  
  
DISTRUBUTION: If you want it, take it. But don't forget to e-mail me the destination.  
RATING: Plain PG. I'm sorry for it, too.  
FEEDBACK: I like FEEDBACK, I love FEEDBACK, I want FEEDBACK, I NEED FEEDBACK (Get my point?)  
  
  
  
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  
  
  
She is laying by my side. Her head is cushioned on my shoulder and though the circulation in my arm is about to be broken I just can't bring myself to wake her up. I still am not used to her presence at my side. When I wake up before the dawn - like now - I have to remember myself to be still as a shadow. Sometimes she has been waken by the slightest of all sounds, a bird chirping, a child talking... I'm thankful that she can't feel me looking at her.  
  
How did I ever get so lucky? Her arms are resting across my stomach, her head just centimeters away from mine and if I´m still enough I can even feel her breath hot against my skin... She is a miracle, I decide, and she is mine alone.  
  
I remember going out for a walk all those months ago. It should just have been a stroll through the park like the ones I did everyday. In those last years I had defined a clear path near the lake and I never went out of it. God bless the second my feet changed their normal course. Maybe I'll never know what possessed me to enter that unknown passage, but I'll never be thankful enough for it.  
  
There she was, sitting on a bench. Cutely asleep under the sunshine. The strange white clothes she wore and the bright shade of her hair gave her the impression of an angel, or of a sleeping goddess, maybe. I knew then that being an angel she had been sent to me, and been asleep she was waiting for me to wake her up.  
  
It sounded like the most logical thing in the world.  
  
Now, I don't know how I gathered the courage to actually walk towards her. I've always been a shy guy, eternally fearing stranger's reactions, especially when they were so beautiful. But before I knew it I was right in front of her and I was actually speaking to her and she opened her green eyes and locked them with mine and I was lost.   
  
Utterly and irremediably lost...  
  
...and so was her. Literally.  
  
She said she didn't know where to go. She also said that she didn't know her way back. That is her only secret. Even so much time afterwards she still refuses to tell me where she comes from. She just states that she has always belonged to me and who am I to discuss what I already know to be true?  
  
So now she belongs to me, to my house, to my heart and to my bed. She is mine just as I am hers and neither of us would ever dream of complaining.   
  
How can I be so sure after so little time? I just am.  
  
I remember going for coffee with her that day. Or better said, I went for coffee and she drank an iced tea. After a long silence I asked her what plans did she have for the future. She just looked into her empty glass and shook her head lightly. In less than a second I had already decided I would always care for her. As always with her, it was the most logical thing to do. Now you will say that I am wrong, maybe even crazy. Why should I care for a stranger? But I did. And I did because deep down she was no stranger. Somehow I knew what her next reaction would be and meanwhile I realised that she could read me better than anyone - even my own mother - ever could. So she was no stranger and I was her self-appointed protector. The feeling was so new that I was surprised at how fast I assimilated it. Shouldn't my new 'heroism' have been greeted with pride and astonishment in my inner self? It was not, at that moment I only felt an odd relief, as if a missing piece of myself was finally returning to my soul.  
  
Conversation followed innocently enough. She asked the usual questions about my work, my friends, my family... she wanted to know every little detail about my life and each answer seemed to give her a new joy, as if she were getting something she never believed would ever become true. The problems began when her questions stopped and I began to ask mine.   
  
"Where do you come from, Buffy?"  
  
She just gazed at me with that troubled and fearful gaze of hers and that was her only answer.  
  
Even now she won't tell me. But doesn't mean that she has stopped thinking about it. Sometimes I see that far-away look in her eyes and I know that she is thinking about her past...   
  
Now she stirs lightly in her sleep. Her mouth opens and closes over and over and I know that she is having that nightmare again. The one from which she'll wake up sweating and screaming and calling for an angel. I like to think that she calls for me. She doesn't like to talk about her nightmares, either. She just says that at my side they don't matter. I don't know how she can say that when she's only known me for some months. I can understand her, though. I also feel that everything fades away when she is with me.  
  
I kiss her lightly on her temple and her cheeks and her mouth. that calms her down for now and she then is sleeping quietly besides me again.  
  
She is the girl of the many secrets, the one that bares her naked soul to me but hides herself in the shadows. She is my light and believes herself to be a shadow. She says she loves me but sometimes looks at me with tears in her eyes. She says she'll stay but she acts as if she were afraid of this life dissolving into nothingness. I am still looking for her missing pieces. An instinct tells me that she can be better than she already is... and considering that she is perfect now then that is a lot to say.  
  
Where do you hide, love? Why can't you let me love you as I want to? What don't you let me see?  
  
Whatever it is, it won't take me apart from her. She has confessed that that is her deepest fear. To be without me. As if I ever could be without her...   
  
"How could I ever leave you alone?" I asked her.  
  
She just looked at me with sad eyes. "Not even for my own sake?" She countered.  
  
Apparently she already knew the answer because she just kissed me when I didn't respond. Could I leave her? I wanted to shout: 'No. Never. You are stuck with me until time ceases to be'. But is it the truth? Her words taunt me, rendering me speechless in their magnitude. 'Not even for my own sake?' I realised then that I would do it. If she were to be better off without me I wouldn't even doubt about it. Not even if it broke every cell inside me, not even if it broke hers, too.  
  
"I won't live without you again." She said two weeks later. She was in my arms about to fall asleep when she suddenly raised her head and gazed into my eyes. "I.won't.live.without.you.again." At first I wanted to laugh. How could she say that only two months after meeting me? I could say and mean it. But it was different. I am older and I know what the words mean. But does Buffy know it too? Now I don't even doubt it. I didn't then after looking into her yes. They held such intensity in them that I knew she had planned carefully each word.   
  
I Won't Live Without You Again.   
  
What I still don't know is what possessed her to say such a thing. I had just been talking about our living arrangements. The small bundle of clothes she had brought had rapidly grown with the help of her salary in the library. Who would thing that a girl like her would be so interested in history? But, well, I had been talking about buying a new closet, a small one, just for her; and maybe a bigger mirror for the bathroom, too. And then it happened. She raised her head and she said the words and I gazed into her eyes and I was lost again... and this time I knew she was as lost as I was.  
  
How can we love so much in so little time? That's something I'll never have the answer to. I love her like I love the sun on my skin, I need her to fulfil every dream and passion and to see me like only she can do it. I need her to love me and I love to need her. How crazy is that? Not even six months of knowing each other and I'll ask her to marry me.  
  
Does it really matter if her past remains a secret? It is only her - our - future what matters and her future is written right next to mine. She knows it as much as I do.  
  
Buffy is the girl of the many secrets. Ones I'll never even guess about. But she is also the girl of my every dream and wherever she came from just directed her to my arms. Isn't that enough to bless whatever secret her past contains?  
  
She finally awakes and gazes at me with a sleepy look. After some seconds she is awake enough to take matters into her hands as she takes mine to guide me to the balcony. She has liked this spot since I brought her to live with me. She likes to sit here and look at the sky for hours on end. Then I'll drag her for dinner or for a film and she'll protest smiling and I'll know what happiness is. She once told me that the stars contained the secrets of her future. When I asked her what those secrets were she just told me I should already know them. And the strangest thing is that I actually do.  
  
She was there for me when I wasn't even looking for her and she stayed when I sincerely doubted it. If that doesn't mean that we are destined to each other then I don't know what else could it mean.  
  
"Do you like the view?" She asks and furrows deeper into my embrace.  
  
"Yes." I tell her though I know that she is speaking about the scenery that can be seen from this balcony. Or the one I could see if I wasn't so concentrated in catching that unique scent of hers, the one that smells like Buffy and like me and like all those little things that made her life mine and mine hers.  
  
"I love you" I tell her though I know she already knows it.  
  
"I love you too." Her words are left unsaid but I still hear them in her kiss.  
  
I'll ask her tonight and her answer won't really matter 'cause she's been mine since I saw her under the sun on that October day.  
  
  
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  
  
Did you like it?? Please send feedback.  
  



End file.
